It is February already ...............

Once again a slow update but so much has happened this past week so to start at the beginning.

February already and Hugglets is just a few weeks away.  I am slowly adjusting to being a part time secretary and working on my bears in the afternoons. Hopefully I will complete some of the ideas that are drifting through my mind!

Sasha is slowing filling out and looking less like a lollipop kitty. His fur is starting to thicken and he is eating well, hopefully he will continue to progress, we have had a few bad days when we have felt that he was not improving but he seems to be settling down and his daily medication is helping.

I have not taken many photographs these past few weeks as the weather has been miserable and I have spent a lot of my spare time bearmaking. I have still to find time to go through all my photographs of Brittany and put them into some sort of journal but as a reminder to myself that spring is just around the corner this beautiful picture of trees against a bright blue sky seemed appropriate. When the weather improves I hope to start exploring the local countryside to take photographs. Sad to say that in all my time in Europe I have only seen one 'live' fox, I see so many road kill foxes, hedgehogs and badgers. The tiny snow drops are starting to show in the garden and I think there a bluebells under the trees.

We rented our house with a six month lease with the option to extend it for a further twelve months. I received a letter this past week advising that the houses are being sold and tenants will be offered first option to buy. We are just not ready financially to commit to buying a house at this stage and the developer who purchased these houses at a bargain price has great plans to develop the empty spaces between the houses and remove a number of the beautiful old trees which has made us a little concerned with buying a house which could end up in the middle of a housing estate. Although planning consent has been declined once he has re-applied and obviously seems confident that it will be allowed to proceed this time. This week we were given notice to vacate at the end of April so we will be house hunting again. Hopefully this time we can find something with a longer lease as I am dreading moving yet again.

My daily route to work takes me past an old church in Huntingdon. A memorial on the side wall recently caught my eye, possibly as I am back in the legal world. Poor Thomas Jetherel late of this town, master and corn merchant died on 22 day of June 1774. That part is all well and good however, it goes to say 'he was an example of piety during his life and honesty at his death and tho bankruptcy brought his character for a while, under a cloud'. It continues in a similar vein that he made good his debts etc, I feel sorry for this poor man that even in death he is remembered for his 'bankruptcy'!

Followers of my blog will know that I have a great love of old churches and I photographed many magnificent churches and cathedrals during my sojourn in France. The churches in England are quite different as except for the large cathedral buildings, most of the churches seem rather small whereas even the tiniest villages in Brittany seemed to have buildings of unbelievable splendour. I rather miss the exotic gargoyles, the church in Huntingdon has cute but rather ordinary angels carved into the stone but watch this space who knows what I will find.

We plant seeds, nurture and care for them and trust that flowers will grow. What we've worked and hoped for doesn't show, until suddenly one morning we see a field of miracles. Flavia Weedn